A substantial 19% of the over 95 million views to date are from the country.
“Because it’s got a groove, DJs who saw it on TikTok started playing it at bars, which is where the most Shazams happen according to research we did in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune,” Mehta says.Īfter Sony, of which Ultra is a subsidiary, saw that “Sugar and Brownies” was going viral, the label reached out to audio streaming services with data about the hit potential of the song.Īlmost a year after it went viral, the majority of the YouTube views for the official music video - nearly 30% over the last month - continue to come from India. U2 to Make India Concert Debut, Marking Turning Point for Country as Global Touring Destinationįrom TikTok, “Sugar and Brownies” found its way into pubs and clubs, plays which propelled it to the top of Shazam’s India chart. “You don’t notice it but it’s there,” he says. The section that accompanies the drop features what sounds like a Middle Eastern string instrument but is actually a spliced-up and reversed sample of a man singing Indian classical music. There’s another reason the song has connected so strongly with listeners in India, says Tarcea. “‘Sugar and Brownies’ helped creators make a variety of content.” “For songs in which the vocals dominate, you need to feature lip-synching or dancing,” he says. “Sugar and Brownies”, with its infectious wordless hook, was a perfect match, says Jay Mehta, the director of digital business at Sony Music India. Many of them seek out catchy top lines to soundtrack their seconds-long clips. Among the reasons for TikTok’s widespread presence in India, where its popularity is particularly high in smaller cities and towns, is that users who don’t have access to video cameras or computers can shoot, edit and add music and effects to their videos within the app. India is one of the fastest-growing markets for TikTok, accounting for over 200 million of its global user base, which is estimated to be between 500 million and a billion. A spokesperson for ByteDance, which owns TikTok, tells Billboard that approximately 53,000 creators in India have used the track as background music for videos related to “food, fashion, lifestyle and travel.” There are currently over 1.7 million videos featuring the composition on TikTok, which users have variously tagged #sugarbrownies, #sugarandbrownies and #sugarnbrownies on the app. “But they weren’t all searching for ‘Sugar and Brownies.’ Many were searching for the hook line ‘uhhh na na na na.’” “People were leaving comments like, ‘Who came here from TikTok?’” says Tarcea.
Tarcea says he realized people were discovering the song on TikTok after it began taking off on YouTube. Now let’s dive into each of these viral TikTok songs and see what kind of videos they’re featured in.How K-Pop & Punjabi Pop Are Displacing Bollywood on Indian Streaming Services